Like many 'wealth creators' they've simply taken business from elsewhere, largely from place like local newspapers which are dying on their arse. They know this, which is why they commission deceitful validating puffery like this to make themselves feel better about it.

My bike crash just outside work last year (thrown over the front after hitting a pothole at 20mph) was tracked on Strava, including the trip to hospital in an ambulance. This at least helped me piece together some of what happened and work out how long I was unconscious for.

I can see stuff like this (and gopro footage) being subpoenaed by accident investigators in future, although it's also useful for more vulnerable users proving others at fault, or for snitching on red-light jumping motorists.

There's still a lot of iphone 4 in the wild, mine included, which are over the obsolescence threshold for this update. Most of us don't really need a better phone, it does what is needed, and more importantly fits in your pocket (exactly where do you all stick your phablets?). The aim of the updates is to bloat older models into a crawl, to encourage uptake of a shiny new model.

As a general rule I'd never go near any company that replaces words in its name with numbers or letters, not due to any kind of grammar fascism but because it has always a sign of some kind of shonky business. Spammers pissed in that pool many years ago, nearly all the spamvertised domains at one time used a similar naming methodology.

The fine is probably adequate - this is a small company disobeying the rules, possibly through carelessness/ignorance rather than intent - a business spamming rather than a spamming business, an easy collar for the regulator. The fine will likely exceed the amount they would have gained from this campaign. It's unlikely to be a deterrent for the big boys who cover their tracks and operate globally with impunity, but might encourage a few local marketeers to operate with more care.

The UK regulator would have probably fined them something like £50 or just told them to say sorry and promise not to do it again.

Gun crime exists in the UK because of legal gun markets in places like the USA. If there was no commercial manufacture of guns permitted, we'd not have so many in the hands of criminals here. Lax US gun laws are culpable for gun crime in other nations too. Where do you think these firearms come from?

I note the US feels justified in taking action against other nations (e.g. Columbia) to prevent drugs produced in those countries entering their market and causing harm to their citizens. If only we had the balls to do the same with guns.

Re: Designed to sell screens

I reckon they'll go for 'tallscreen' TVs next, maybe a 4:3 aspect ratio, something like that. Think how programmes will benefit from all that extra space above the picture, all the extra sky they'll be able to show. Your HD widescreen sets will become obsolete.

Doughnut time

This is presumably about saving the police time from doing anything in the event of a crime other than tell you to get your mobile provider to flick a switch. However, it'll make no difference anyway given the number of cases I've heard of where people have tracked their stolen phone (or other goods) to an address only for the police to say they're unprepared to do anything about it.

Load balancing is coming, based on 30-yr old proven tech (compressed air storage) used in Germany and the states, the more refined versions of which can manage 70% efficiency. It's all a work in progress. Load balancing and greater efficiency at the consumer end will help too, with a little education (stick that washer on at night). Eventually, night time balance will be picked up by charging of electric cars or hydrogen generation. Intermittancy of supply isn't really an argument anymore, it's solveable and well on the way to being solved.

Plenty more generating technologies on the way, including burning undersea coal in the ground by pumping in pure oxygen causing spontaneous combustion. Keep an eye on those geologists, they're smart guys.

Any chance of applying this to 'line rental' charges for internet access? No way does that 'cost' whatever they say it does, it needs to be wrapped up in the total amount paid. Some of us don't want/need a home phone.

Feeble

Is there any point warning these companies about forthcoming fines? Doesn't that just give the scumbag directors ample time to shift assets to a safe place?

Until we have a law that gives the ICO power to commandeer a JCB and dig up the offender's incoming lines within 24hrs of the first validated complaint and impound their stupid big white Audis then this sort of activity will carry on. Prosecution and a fine dodged through bankrupcy are just a risk of doing business, and the slow wheels of justice will provide plenty of time for boot-filling and squirreling away.

Fool me thrice...

I've avoided Sony products since experiencing the early (but just out of warranty) death of a couple of their compact digital cameras, broken only by a free-on-contract phone which also didn't go the distance (the mini joypad/arrow button losing the ability to do 'down'). Build quality just isn't up to it. Much as this is seen by many companies as a 'good' business model requiring consumers to purchase frequent replacements, I'm not playing anymore.

The proprietary memory card/charger thing was always annoying too, at least one of these has been ditched (take note, Apple).

It's 5k for the physical door material, and 95k for the 'image rights' license to make the Apple logo on the door, image rights owned by a subsiduary company in a low-tax jurisdiction and the cost of which can be deducted from taxable profits in the US.

RE writing number on card

...the trick is to write the *wrong number* on your card (or on a bit of paper in your wallet - something like 'HSBC 1884'), slightly scruffily so maybe one of the digits isn't clear (is that an 8 or a 6?). That way any card thief will think they're in luck and probably have a shot at using it (with the unclear digit they'll maybe have a couple of guesses, assuming the first was wrong), and increase the chance that they get caught (or your card retained by a machine), or at worst waste a bit of their time, dash their hopes and piss them off.

This will be a legitimate business expense they'll be able to offset against tax, right? So the <insert offshore tax haven> gets less of the corporation tax these companies might have paid if they weren't already fiddling most of it anyway. Poor Luxembourg.

Hiding the truth

I was really angry when they had footage on the BBC of the so-called 'round the world' yacht race, and at no point was the opposing view that the world isn't round presented. Not a single word. Why do I pay my license fee to these flat-earth deniers? What kind of cabal of pressure groups and educated people with a knowledge of the subject persuaded them to hide THE TRUTH!!??

Re: Eight years

If there was no medical reason to update old images, why would they do this? Why go to the time and expense of converting something that is of no use?

If this is the first time someone has come forward to request a copy of an image of this type in however many years since the kit stopped being used, and isn't really doing so with a valid medical reason, then hasn't the decision not to maintain this archive in a currently readable format been the correct one?

(proprietery formats still suck, but a mistake from the past that doesn't need correcting doesn't really matter)

I always flip over to BBC news channel when the ads come on, which means I never know what people are talking about when they say 'have you seen the new whatever advert'. I guess this is another reason why Murdoch wants to eviscerate the corporation.

I'm looking forward to when we all have those google-type glasses displays that will be able to block out billboard adverts in the real world and replace them with pictures of kittens. Advertisers are on limited time.

RE: Obviously!

They'll make a profit by moving their tax base offshore, thus taking money from the government, and by cutting jobs and pay so that government support to employees (housing benefit etc.) is increased. The costs to the taxpayer are just moved elsewhere, and will probably be higher. That's the only way these things ever work. It's legalised mugging.

The council will doubtless have to throw more money at consultants to monitor and measure the contract, and will get billed for extras along the way, plus a few million for lawyers to argue about these extras.

It's not fixing they mean, it's keeping a corpse animated. I'm not sure why as an industry its decline is any more worthy of attention than mining, heavy manufacturing or horse shoeing.

Music existed before the 'music industry' existed.

It'll still be there after the industry exists.

There's not much work around for blacksmiths these days, but people still find other work, people still get about. Society and technology changes and flow of money and employment moves with it. The 'music industry' in its current form is just a blip in the history of music.

I'm involved with (playing, promoting and watching) self-organised, amateur musicians that do all the things commercial musicians do bar make a living out of it. Tours abroad, gigs, national radio play/sessions, records. There's no inferiority in technique, ability or inventiveness. There's actually more creative freedom when there isn't a focus on producing something saleable (that's not to say people produce impenetrable nonsense, there are all levels and styles).

It's not that there's a hostility to the music 'industry', it's just that it's not necessary, never really was. It barely exists for a lot of people. It's now (and arguably always has been) about branding, not music. We won't stop writing and playing and having fun just because EMI stopped existing.

(as an aside, I'm not writing this as a filesharing apologist. I have enough access to music without it or the mainstream industry).

A fan (but not a fanboi) writes...

I do most of my browsing on one of two 4th gen touches that I own (I bought a bigger one and still haven't parted with the smaller version). They're good for taking to hotels and browsing on wi-fi while your aging, low-battery life smart phone is sat charging on the desk, or for sitting in bed browsing (and I feel quite safe sliding it under the pillow at the end of the night - not something I'd be confident of doing with a larger device). I could even tether one to my phone's internet connection via bluetooth on my last phone contract and use it on the move, browsing without eating away too much of the precious battery life of the phone itself (avoiding using its power-hungry screen). They're cheap second hand - paid £135 for my 64gb version from a shop, and imagine you could do better via online tat merchants or private sales.

I predict I'll have a 5th gen when bored kids start selling them to crack converter shops about two months after Christmas....

Democracy

It'd be a more democratic world if everyone within reach of America's judicial arm got to vote in the US presedential election. That'd be all of us, yes? No incarceration without representation. Being subject to laws you can't change or challenge is fundamentally unfair.

Lacking invention

'Machine Gun Kelly' was a member of 90's US rock/rap crossover act The Hard Corps, who were moderately well known (enough to sell records in Blighty). Guy could at least come up with an original name, although it seems invention is beyond his capacity.

If you want an iPhone, just buy an iPhone. Offer your friend £70 for that old 3GS sat in their kitchen drawer, stick in a pay monthly sim and wait until the next gen falls into that price bracket on the secondary market in about 12 months. You'd still be ahead of most of these.

Just don't think you'll have an easy time getting away from them once you sign up. Call centre staff refusing to let me come off (completed) contract until I got quite shouty with them. I didn't want a 'solution' to their shit signal, I just wanted to move to another network (same as my work phone) that I know worked at home and in the office (Three coverage inadequate at both). I resent having to be rude to people before they do what you've been politely requesting. Even once I got to that point It took me over a month and more shouting to get a PAC code AND they kept billing me once the contract was over. Being a prick is company policy. Never going back.

I used to tether my iPod touch to my iPhone 3G on Three so I could do web stuff on the move without killing the phone battery so much (and also get the nicer screen), never had a problem doing that, very easy to set up. GiffGaff don't seem to let me have the same choice, unfortunately.

Who else had pie?

The poor kid at school with the Dragon 32 was only one off the bottom of the bullying pecking order from the guy with the Jupiter Ace (who was pitied rather than assaulted). The intense rivalry between Sinclair and Commodore users would often be forgotton and both armies turn on that guy. It didn't help that he'd already marked himself out as a bit of an arse before the era of home computer tribalism erupted.

Nobody seemed to pick on the BBC Micro guys though. They were just oddballs that got left alone.

I'm just disappointed that none of my cats are visible on Google Earth or Streetview, and they're larger than 4" in any plane. Google obviously doesn't have hardware with the capability to negate feline cloaking devices.